Today, the moving and storage industry is vast as there is a great deal of mobility among people and businesses.
Typically in moving, articles, packages, and even furniture are first packed into large wooden containers that are stationed in a moving trailer. Articles are generally hand carried from the residence to the truck which depending on certain situations and circumstances can be a significant distance. Moreover, once reaching the truck, those individuals carrying the articles must lift and carry them up a ramp into the truck. Obviously, this is a very laborious, time-consuming, and exhausting chore, not to mention the expense associated with such.
After the household articles are all packed, the moving trailer is directed to a new residence or in some cases the articles and furniture are sent to a warehouse for temporary storage. In the case where the articles are shipped to a new residence, the very same articles have to be unpacked from the container while in the trailer, and hand carried from the trailer into the new residence. Thus, the same laborious, time-consuming, and exhausting chore is repeated.
Presently, the moving and storage industry does not have a fully automatic and integrated system for handling containers from door to door. In a commonly owned U.S. patent application, Ser. No. 128,870, filed Dec. 4, 1987, and entitled COLLAPSIBLE MOVING AND STORAGE CONTAINER, there is disclosed a highly efficient, knock down container that starts to address the needs of a fully automatic and integrated, moving system. In this application, the present inventor discloses a lightweight container that can be easily broken down for storage and which is designed to form a part of a fully automatic, moving system. In such a system, it is envisioned that these containers can be transported directly to the front door of a residence, loaded there, and transported back to the moving trailer where the containers can be automatically loaded into the trailer. Thereafter, that same process can be utilized for transporting the filled container from the trailer to the front door of a new residence.
Today, there has not really been an attempt at designing a container carrier for filling the gap between the trailer and the residence. This, obviously, is no easy undertaking inasmuch as the containers are relatively large and heavy. Any such carrier must be designed to be portable, at least to the extent that will enable the carrier to be hauled from location to location in the moving trailer.